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Senate bans partial-birth abortion
Is there an echo in here? Weblog's headline on March 13 proclaimed that the Senate banned partial-birth abortion. Now all the papers find it big news that they've done it again. (And again and again, actually.)

The bill passed yesterday was slightly different than it was back in March (that earlier version had language supporting the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision), but the comments are so overwhelmingly the same that Weblog could almost cut and paste the text from that March 13 posting. Prolifers support the bill because it bans a barbaric practice that might as well be called infanticide rather than abortion. Abortion rights supporters, on the other hand, say the ban is just a ruse—an effort to destroy Roe v. Wade.

Here's what makes this story different: yesterday's vote was the last step in Congress. From here it goes to President Bush's desk to become law. And then it's off to the courts. Um. Again. Anyone dizzy yet?

Still, if you're interested in the news, here's the coverage from the Associated Press, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and the Los Angeles Times (which, in a separate story, says the ban is unlikely to take effect—a very premature conclusion).

Terri Schiavo's murder thwarted
Yesterday's partial-birth abortion ban vote wasn't the only big news for prolifers yesterday. With a quick vote from the Florida legislature and an order from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, mentally disabled Florida woman Terri Schiavo is being fed again, despite her legal husband's efforts to starve her to death.

"It's restored my belief in God," her father told the Associated Press. Here are some of the major stories:

• Governor of Florida orders woman fed in right-to-die case | Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the feeding tube of a brain-damaged woman reinserted after the Legislature empowered him to do so (The New York Times)
  
  
• Governor acts on beliefs, not to win political backing | Personal conviction rather than political gain is the driving force behind Gov. Jeb Bush's rapid intervention in the case of a brain-damaged woman whose feeding tube was removed (Mark Silva, The Orlando Sentinel)
  
  
• Schiavo back on life support | It took an unprecedented act of the state Legislature and an order from the governor backed with a threat of arrest, but Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was reinserted late Tuesday (Tampa Tribune)
  
  
• Gov. Bush's order puts Schiavo back on fluids | A crowd cheers as Terri Schiavo is moved to a hospital to have her feeding tube reinserted. A judge refuses to overturn Bush's order (St. Petersburg Times)
  
  
• Terri Schiavo's life | The Florida legislature passes a bill to save a woman's life (David Gelernter, The Wall Street Journal)
  
  
• Earlier: Brain-damaged Fla. woman denied communion | The Roman Catholic priest of a brain-damaged woman whose feeding tube was removed this week tried to give her a final communion but was refused entry by police officers guarding the entrance to the hospice (Associated Press)
  
  
• Also: Florida police refuse to let dying comatose woman have holy communion (AFP)
  
  
• Also: Sacrament pits family against hospice | After a priest said he was blocked from giving Terri Schiavo her last holy communion at the hospice where she is cared for, her family demanded the hospice administrator produce a court order stipulating she could not receive the sacrament orally (Tampa Bay Online)
  
  

Anglican crisis:

• Robinson: Only God will keep me from post | "God and I have been about this for quite a while now and I would be really surprised if God were to want me to stop now," says gay bishop-elect (Associated Press)
  
  

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October (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47